Six-year-old zips past heart history
Next time you are running through Christchurch’s Hagley Park, you might notice the little boy racing through the crowd with his father riding on a bicycle alongside him.
At 6 years old, Harrison ‘‘Harri’’ Brown set his personal best last week, running the Hagley 5-kilometre park run in 21 minutes and 26 seconds – faster than most adults, including his father. His time placed him 20th out of 9577 people who have completed the Hagley park runs in his age grade.
However, what makes Harri’s running truly phenomenal is that marking his 7th birthday tomorrow also marks exactly seven years since doctors were fighting to keep his heart pumping and the newborn was diagnosed with a critical heart condition – aortic stenosis with severe left ventricle dysfunction. He underwent openheart surgery at less than a day old.
‘‘It was pretty heartbreaking, the uncertainty of what his future would look like,’’ father Rod Brown said. ‘‘He was a really sick kid.’’
Brown said he did not think it would be possible for Harri to take part in sport and run like other children. Then Harri asked to run with his father when he was 3. They began by running 100 metres, then Harri was carried the rest of the way on his father’s shoulders. But by the time he was 4, he was running up and down Halswell Quarry on his own.
He has now completed 24 Hagley park runs, achieving personal bests 15 times.
‘‘He just keeps getting faster,’’ his father said. So much so that by the time he was 5, Harri had completed his ultimate goal in running – to ‘‘drop Dad’’. Brown has to ride a bicycle to keep up alongside him, while Harri said it ‘‘just feels like I am walking’’.
Harri’s personal best last Saturday was faster than the Association of Road Racing Statisticians world single age 5km road record for 6-year-olds – although Hagley is not a certified measured course. ‘‘It is quite amazing that Harri can do what he can do . . . I never would have thought,’’ Brown said.
He had the green light from a cardiologist to run and had not been on medication since he was 1 but was monitored yearly. Brown decided to share his son’s story to raise awareness for the Starship Foundation’s fundraiser to expand the children’s hospital’s intensive care unit.